Ideas Are Like Children (Part One)

It has been said that ideas are like children in that to every parent none are as wonderful as your own. I was thinking about this metaphor and realised that it can go a lot deeper, and not just in a trivial way but rather in a helpful exploration of our responsibilities as parents and guardians of such precious offspring.

First of all I should probably clarify what I mean when I say ‘idea.’ I guess it is going to be different for everyone depending on what you do – for example an idea in the context of my life might be a song, a concept, a way of marketing my music, or maybe something I want to write about among others. For you ideas might be business, technological, problem solving, artistic, political, philosophical, scientific etc, and they will come in all different shapes and sizes whether you consciously recognise them or not. I’m not talking about trivial everyday decisions that we all have to make like,
‘Here’s an idea, let’s go to the cinema and then have a curry for dinner’
‘Oh great idea.’
As you will see that would just be ridiculous.

In this post I will lay the abstract foundations of the metaphor and then follow it up in a second post with a few examples of what I mean and what we can do to allow for better development of the raising of ideas.

Conception
I start with the notion that a child is much more than the sum of its parts. When a baby is born it is not simply equal to the sum of its father and mother. The child is already a totally unique entity in and of itself. The parents are responsible for bringing the child to life, for providing an appropriate environment throughout the stages before they are even born so that it is allowed to survive and flourish:

1. During conception
2. During pregnancy
3. During birth

If they fail to nurture an environment in which the foetus is allowed to survive then the child is lost. The baby needs a certain amount of time in the womb before it is developed enough to enter and exist in the outside world. If it is born too prematurely there is a chance it will be forever negatively affected if indeed it survives at all.

Likewise, as creative people our ideas are born of an environment in which they are allowed to develop, allowed to grow and allowed to become what they are meant to be. If we fail to foster an environment in which we can adequately capture ideas, allow them to develop and flourish then they will just fall unrealised into the abyss of ignorance, or float about in the upper realm of inspiration until they fall upon receptive ears.

Ideas are not slaves to us as masters in the same way a parent has no right to treat their child as a slave, there is a sense of responsibility for rather than ownership of both parties. It is a privilege to be entrusted as the custodian of facilitating the arrival and development of new life, it is not something that you deserve. This is not to say that we don’t need to use our experience and discipline to bring up the child/idea in a way that will create the best chances of its blossoming. Once the child is under our guardianship it is our responsibility to discipline them, teach them and grow them for their own sake – it is to their detriment if you fail at this.

The Baby Arrives
Your baby is born, it is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen and you understandably want to show it off to every body you know. At this stage you are very protective and don’t really like other people holding them for long before you want to hold them close again. The baby needs food, security and comfort, which you bring best because of your inbuilt affection and bond with them.

At this stage the routine can be quite erratic, the baby will sleep a lot, will need feeding and changing when it isn’t sleeping, which means it is a case of getting your head down and rolling with their schedule because it is too early to attempt moulding them to a routine. It is a period of basically sustaining the needs of your child, allowing it to rest and doing the work when they are awake. It is great to have people around you who can help you out, maybe with some housekeeping, cooking etc, which you have not really had chance to do, and also to chat to, ask for advice and generally absorb some steam that you need to let off.

Although the hard work doesn’t cease as the baby develops you are able to create a routine that both you and your child can slip into in order to foster maximum happiness. Extenuating circumstances will of course mean that the routine has to adapt occasionally but on the whole both you and your child know where you stand and what you need to do to look after them.

As your child grows there will be times when you get a little annoyed with some of the things they do. Especially under the strain of sleep deprivation you might feel like you are both pulling in different directions, that you are a bad parent and that your child is a lost cause. But then these times are crushed under periods of extreme development such as first genuine smile, learning to crawl, taking their first steps, first words etc. This is all a part of the process of independence, as your child slowly breaks from its immediate need for you, although this is a very gradual process (many years).

Your child will start to interact with other children and learn things from them they could never learn from you. They form groups of friends, they play together, they learn together, they fall out, they fight and they hopefully make up again. This is such an important time in the shaping and development of their purpose, direction and view of the world around them into which they need to fit. Over time these relationships come and go, they might develop ‘special personal relationships,’ they might fall in with the ‘wrong crowd’ and they might join groups/organisations/collectives. During these periods you have to be careful not to push them away with tyrannical overlordmanship, seek instead other more productive ways of helping them become an independent individual.

Your Job is Done
Eventually your child outgrows its need for you, and can function and survive 100% autonomously. It can be very hard to let go and acknowledge this as a parent; you think that your child will always need your help/direction/advice. While there will always be a strong bond between parent and child there is also a tipping point at which you have got to let go in order not to completely stifle their development and potentially end its likelihood to procreate. This is a beautiful moment as you realise that you did your job in providing the environment to prepare your child for the world perfectly well. If however you restrict their autonomy they could whither and die, they could rebel and become destructive, and more importantly other people will not experience their natural personality, love and purpose. The implications of not releasing your child properly can be catastrophic.

Summary
To sum up, we all have the capacity to raise and grow ideas. These are entrusted to us and not deserved by anyone. Successful and flourishing ideas come from homes that nurture them, allow them to develop and understand that they are more than a sum of their creator(s) parts, so to speak. This means that eventually we have to let them go their own way. If we do this successfully then we will still play a massive part in their life and will forever be acknowledged with fondness as a key to their development, but if we fail to do these things they will most likely suffer unless someone else rescues them.

Next time I will outline a few examples of successful idea rearing and some of the things from my experience that make for a good environment in the conception and nurturing of my own ideas.